Sooo, we decided to go the untraditional, alternative method with allowing James to start on solids called baby-led weaning.
Baby-Led Weaning:
"Baby-led weaning (often abbreviated to BLW) means forgetting baby purées and weaning spoons and simply letting your baby feed himself. Many parents unconsciously choose baby-led weaning, particularly with second or subsequent children. Babies love to copy their older siblings and try to grab food from their plates and are often much happier if they are allowed to feed themselves.
"Gill Rapley, a health visitor for 25 years and now deputy programme director of UNICEF UK's Baby Friendly Initiative, has a personal interest in baby-led weaning. She believes that babies who are allowed to feed themselves by being offered a selection of nutritious finger foods can easily join in with family meals from the start, and are less likely to refuse foods or become fussy eaters as they grow older. She considers that many childhood feeding problems stem from a child's unwillingness or inability to accept foods which require chewing, and that these problems become apparent when babies move from purées to "second-stage" foods which contain lumps. She also suggests that the baby food industry puts unnecessary pressure on parents to introduce puréed foods into their babies' diets at an early age."
-babycentre.co.uk
I first heard about it while we were discussing weaning (ie. starting on solids) in baby massage class and thought that it sounded like a good idea. James has been really interested in watching us eat and is always reaching for foods off of our plates. While we're holding off from completely starting him on solids and feeding him all of the different foods we're eating, we thought we'd see what he thinks of a few different food items. So far he's tried celery, cucumber, banana and some courgette (zucchini). He's kind of "meh" on the celery and courgette but he really liked the cucumber and bananas. Looks like we're off to a good start!
mmmm, cucumber!
banana-flavored fingers are better than the real deal, I guess.
what am I supposed to do with this?
not really a fan of courgettes...
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